Then I'll Take It Back
A heavy silence filled the CEO's office at CT Entertainment.
"...What?"
Only after a long moment did Yang Ha-rin manage to ask again. She could hardly help it. Hers had not been a short life, and not once in it had anyone told her she didn't know what she was talking about—and the one who had just told her was Kim Seonil.
She had been running after him as her role model all this time: the Rookie of the Year awards, the acting, even that cutting attitude. Which was precisely why the blow now landing in her head felt so enormous.
"Seonil, what are you saying?"
Her voice was soaked through with confusion, but Kim Seonil's eyes didn't waver in the slightest, as if to confirm she had heard him correctly.
"...Do you know that woman too? What's the deal with this Lee Sua?"
Kim Seonil started to answer, then swallowed it.
"..."
He couldn't casually let slip that Lee Sua had landed the lead in Special Task Force 808. That was a massive bomb, one they meant to detonate later, and detonate loudly. So instead—
"...Yang Ha-rin."
"Yes?"
"Do I really have to spell out every little thing for you?"
"...!"
Yang Ha-rin clamped her mouth shut, her whole face blank with shock. Only after a long while did she slowly shake her head and mutter.
"I just can't understand it. I can act at that level too. Why do you keep talking as if she's better than me...?"
"Then you should have gone head to head with her. I wonder which of you would have broken."
"Going head to head doesn't even make sense! I'm a serious contender for Rookie of the Year, and she's a complete nobody! We're not even in the same league!"
A pleading note had crept into her voice, but Kim Seonil was done entertaining her. He turned his gaze, this time, on Director Park, and under that razor of a look Park Joon's shoulders gave a small twitch.
"Director Park. I understand your circumstances. I do."
"Seonil..."
"I just didn't realize your eye only went that far."
Kim Seonil said it without heat.
"You must have known perfectly well which of them was better."
Director Park didn't answer. He looked, if anything, as though he couldn't; his face hung somewhere in the ambiguous middle. The air had gone cold. Kim Seonil was gathering his coat amid the general shock when the CEO finally opened his mouth.
"...From the sound of it, Actor Kim, you took quite a liking to that interviewee. Lee Sua, or whatever her name was?"
"Let's be precise about what was said."
Kim Seonil answered, flat and firm.
"It wasn't that I liked her. I acknowledged her. That's all."
"A rookie that Actor Kim acknowledged? That's a first."
The CEO and Yang Ha-rin both looked bursting with more to say, but Kim Seonil ignored every bit of it and started for the door.
"The film's already dead. I'll be going."
Watching him leave, Yang Ha-rin ground her teeth—and thought.
That goddamn bitch, Lee Sua.
You dare twist things into this?
Fine. Whatever. I'll give you the Wi Ji-hye role.
And then I'll crush you flat with my acting.
It was the moment Yang Ha-rin's resentment toward Lee Sua truly took root.
"Seonil!"
The moment they were clear of the CT Entertainment building, Park Joon chased after him.
"Seonil, talk to me for a second! Just one question!"
Kim Seonil stopped, and Park Joon caught his breath in heaving gasps. The other man stood so neatly composed that the difference between them was stark. Once Park Joon had his breathing under control, he asked.
"Lee Sua. Is there really something more to that woman? I've never seen you go this far, that's why."
"...You followed me out here to ask that?"
"Of course that's it. What else would I ask? Oh—the film?"
Park Joon waved a hand as if it were nothing.
"It's fine. I was retiring anyway, wasn't I? Honestly, I was hoping the thing would fall through. I don't want a leash from CT Entertainment around my neck, and I don't want to watch Yang Ha-rin ruin another rookie."
"Well. If you've got no real regrets, then that's fortunate."
"So what is it with that rookie, exactly?"
Park Joon turned back over the Kim Seonil he knew.
The counterweight of a set.
All kinds of things happened on a shoot. There were times an actor or a crew member was in bad shape, and no one could easily call it out. Whenever that happened, Kim Seonil stepped forward without hesitation. Even if it meant taking the resentment onto himself, he had the nerve to do it for the sake of a better finished work.
And through all of that, his praise was exceedingly rare. Pull off something close to perfect, and the most you ever got back was the look of a man who thought you'd merely done your job. For that Kim Seonil to praise a rookie this highly—of course he was curious.
"Hmm."
Kim Seonil tilted his head and folded his arms.
"I don't think that's something you need to ask me."
"Huh?"
"You've got eyes, don't you? You saw the acting yourself."
"...Ah. Right. It really was incredible."
Park Joon nodded, conceding the point.
"For a second I even wondered if I ought to drop the whole idea of killing the film, you know? But still, putting a rookie next to Ha-rin is dangerous..."
Kim Seonil knew exactly what had worried him. He had seen plenty of rookies drained to the marrow by Yang Ha-rin and then tossed aside. Of course the man had been afraid a shining uncut gem would shatter. But as far as he was concerned, Lee Sua was different.
"Yang Ha-rin wouldn't have eaten her alive. The other way around, maybe."
"Her attitude was something else, too. Ha-rin was letting fly without a pause for breath, this and that, and she didn't blink. Not once."
Director Park cocked his head.
"Now that I say it out loud, it's strange, isn't it? Acting that good, and she even got your acknowledgment—so why was a kid like that showing up to an audition like this?"
"Director Park."
Kim Seonil said it low.
"Do you remember her saying she acts as a hobby?"
"Yeah. She did. But is that actually true? It doesn't make any sense."
"...I don't know whether it's true or not. But one thing is certain."
He went on.
"You cannot predict her. Not in the slightest."
"..."
An upscale Chinese restaurant. The room was wide, red, and refined—a great round table, and over it a spread of dishes laid out in lavish excess.
The production team of Special Task Force 808.
Today, though, there were more faces than PD Choi Heewon, writer Lee Geumsuk, and Seo Yeon-ju. Every one of them was a key supporting actor, the people who would fill out the drama's many corners. Lee Geumsuk was the first to lift her chopsticks.
"That's right. We need a gathering like this. If everyone's stiff once we start shooting, the performance that wanted to come out simply won't."
"Exactly. This is when we put faces to names ahead of time."
While PD Choi Heewon nodded, Seo Yeon-ju picked up a neatly cut piece of dongpo pork—braised pork belly, glistening—with her chopsticks.
"If you ask me, this is the sort of gathering Kim Seonil needs most of all. And the one person it would actually suit didn't even come. The nerve."
"Hahaha. You're telling me."
"No, wait. On second thought, he doesn't need to come. You could throw a hundred of these and that one still wouldn't come away with a friend."
That was when it happened.
The executives, chatting at their ease, suddenly felt something glitter. It was the looks the supporting actors were sending from across the table.
"Um..."
"By any chance..."
"Mmm..."
Then, all at once, they opened their mouths with the eyes of baby birds.
"The person cast as Kim Yu-han... they aren't coming today, are they?"
The executives sitting side by side burst out laughing.
"There it is. I was wondering when that question would land."
"They've been itching to ask since the moment they walked in."
When Lee Geumsuk and Choi Heewon answered with sly grins, the supporting actors' faces grew even more pitiful.
"What's with that reaction? We're serious. We couldn't even sleep, wondering who landed Kim Yu-han..."
"Is that so?"
"Yes! Any longer and our necks are going to fall off!"
But even Seo Yeon-ju, the one they'd been counting on, only shook with a wicked little laugh, and the supporting actors burned hotter.
"Th-then at least tell us whether it's Jo Il-hyeon or not! Everyone out there is guessing Jo Il-hyeon!"
"It isn't Choi Kang-woo, is it? I'm a Choi Kang-woo fan."
Choi Heewon's defense, however, was as solid as his muscle.
"Keep speculating. Let us enjoy the process."
"Aren't you hiding it past the point of reason? This is supposed to be where the cast greets each other, and like this we can't even say hello."
"They aren't someone you were going to get close to anyway. More to the point."
He turned the conversation with practiced ease.
"So that we may pour everything we have into this project, this year's script reading will be conducted as a mock shoot."
"...?"
At that, the supporting actors' faces all tilted askew at once, and they quickly traded bewildered looks.
"A mock shoot...?"
"Do we have to?"
"That'll cost several times what a script reading does, won't it?"
Their doubts were well founded. A script reading ended once everyone sat down together and ran the lines. A mock shoot meant acting it out on a set like the real thing, and it burned twice the resources to do it.
"PD, are you doing this because you're anxious?"
"We've got plenty of shooting experience ourselves. Warming up beforehand with nothing but a script reading is more than enough."
That was when it happened. Seo Yeon-ju's voice settled over them, easy and unhurried.
The next day.
"Hmm~ hm-hmm~ hee-hee-hmm~"
Sua lay on the bed with a rabbit plush locked in her arms, idly fiddling with her phone.
Is this allowed?
"Uuugh. Resting feels so good..."
It was allowed.
Her short-film schedule had vanished, and she hadn't even received the Special Task Force 808 script yet. The beverage commercial still had days left on it. Lawful unemployment, more or less. Not that she was frittering away every hour in pure idleness—she had recorded herself acting and studied the footage on her phone more than once. She wasn't entirely lazy.
Sua, reading with her eyes alone, reacted before she knew it.
"Whoa. Showbiz really is fast at everything."
An article, overnight, that the film she'd auditioned for yesterday had been scrapped. The industry moved even faster than she had thought.
"I think I know why."
Sua called up the image of Yang Ha-rin. That arrogance that acknowledged no one around her, the high-handed tyranny nobody in the room could endure... In the end, hadn't it collapsed because they couldn't find a single person to play opposite her?
"Why did I even video-call them back then. Sigh."
She never should have let these people see her face. And yet, even in the middle of this, Sua managed to learn something.
So this is why actors manage their image.
The moment she realized that even a walking disaster like Yang Ha-rin was still seen this way by the public, it hit her cleanly that she, too, had better manage her image as an actress.
Now that I think about it, that's really true, isn't it? Even that terrifying Kim Seonil is adored by his fans as some gentle, considerate type...
She made a decision. A very firm one.
"All right. I'm managing my image too. A cool unni, great at acting, full of charisma... That's what I'm going to be..."
She did not, of course, say this in the group chat.
...For now, only to her precious rabbit friend.
"Right, Tosun? Unni's that kind of person, isn't she? Go on, say yes. The crazy bitch who bites down hard the second somebody tries something bad."
Somehow, the rabbit seemed to shake its head. Sua was busy mashing her cheek all over its belly when a ringtone chimed, right on cue.
Good. Image-management practice.
"...Hello."
She answered as coldly as she could manage.
"Ah, I—I'm sorry! This is Director Park Joon, from the short film Sword. You said you wanted the role of Wi Ji-hye...!"
"...Huh?"
Why was this man calling? Sua blinked and sat up straighter.
"Ms. Sua, we'd like you to take the role of Wi Ji-hye."
"What?"
It was unexpected. Honestly, she hadn't hoped for much. She had simply figured that if it worked out, it worked out, and if it didn't, it didn't.
"Understood. Then I'll do my best."
She said only that, and nodded. And once the call had ended—
"Well. It worked out."
▶ Production Elements: Sufficient
▶ Experience: Complete
▶ Grade: 1.5
She had no idea why, but the grade had climbed quite a bit. Nothing wrong with that, then.